The man before me stumbles for a second, and I start to panic, thinking I’m going to have to hit him again, but my hands are already reverberating from the impact—and then he sinks to his knees before collapsing onto the ground, face-first. I swung just the way Nolan showed me—for power. My hands are still throbbing, my fingers trembling.
Nolan stands over him, his expression blank. This must be Mike, though I’ve never met him. All I know is he was trying to hurt Nolan. I heard him, everything he said—about Nolan, about Liam. This man was working for their parents. How often the danger lurks inside our own homes. How often we let it inside without realizing it.
Mike covers his head with one hand, then pushes himself onto his knees, but Nolan grabs his arm out from under him, sending him back to the dirt. Nolan’s got his arm in his grip still, and they’re inches from the edge.
“Nolan,” I say. He looks up, surprised, like I’m calling him back from some darker place. Like he’s forgotten himself, and then finds whatever he lost once more, as he places a knee on Mike’s back, holding his arm behind him.
Nolan looks up at me, like he’s asking me what to do. And I just stand with the bat in my hands, seeing every possibility play out before us. “The police are on their way,” I finally say.
Mike struggles against the ground, but Nolan’s stronger, and I still have the bat, just in case. I hope I don’t have to use it again. But I will if I have to.
Nolan digs his knee into Mike’s back until he winces and coughs.
Mike’s one blue eye, visible against the ground, is staring straight at me.
I wonder what he sees. I shake off the chill. The evil you think you can see behind the walls, through the window. So much closer than that.
Mike seems to lose all strength then, and his eyes keep drifting shut, and part of me feels sick, even in the relief—wondering what I have just done. Whether this will be something I can never come back from; some crack in the universe. A line that divides my life anew. Before. After.
And once again, all I can do is wait. I count in my head, like I did that night. Until it’s safe.
It feels like forever before we hear the voices down below. The crackle of static from a walkie-talkie.
“Up here!” I shout. “We’re here!” I call again, over and over, until finally, finally two officers come into view.
But they don’t bring relief. Instead, they have weapons drawn, and one of those weapons is pointing at me. Just like Elliot, that night, his eyes unseeing.
For protection, I realize, imagining Elliot as well. In case they need protection.
“Put down the bat!” one of the officers yells.
“Oh.” It drops from my grip, my hands rising over my head.
It makes sense, I guess, that they’re not sure about the scene in front of them—whether Nolan is the suspect here, or whether I am. There’s a man on the ground, Nolan is on top of him, and I still had that bat in my hands.
Nolan releases Mike and raises his hands over his head, but the two officers are still assessing the scene, moving slowly, yelling at us to back away, then to get on the ground.
“I called you,” I say, nearly breathless, as my knees hit the earth. “That man tried to push Nolan off the edge,” I explain, gesturing to Mike on the ground.
But it’s Nolan who finally says it, the reason we are all here: “He killed my brother.”
The finality of it. The answer. The truth.
Nolan gestures toward the edge, and I’m afraid he’s going to look. But it’s the first police officer who does it instead. He peers over the ledge and jerks back, making some hand signal to his partner.
He takes control of Mike on the ground, and several other officers emerge from the woods below, the scene filling with chaos. Nolan and I are quickly separated while the police assess the scene, setting up a perimeter, barking out orders. I can only watch from the distance.
Meanwhile, the officer in front of me keeps asking me questions, but they’re not the right ones.
Who are you—
What were you doing out here—
How did you know—
I give my name, and my statement, and he makes me wait some more. I’m to stay put beside the entrance ticket counter until Joe arrives.
They must be questioning Nolan somewhere else, because I haven’t seen him since.
By now, there’s some makeshift center of operations set up in the clearing behind the old ticket booth, a white tent with sheets for walls. I stand at the sound of several cars pulling into the lot, followed by the approaching footsteps. A police officer leads Nolan into view, but he doesn’t even look at me. He’s looking at the group of people heading from the parking lot. A man in a suit, and a man and a woman who must be Nolan’s parents.
I keep waiting for someone to speak, to make some noise, to start running. But the only thing I hear, carried across the expanse, is Nolan saying, “Mom,” before she reaches him. I watch the three of them, leaning into one another, his father with an arm around each. No one cries out. No one says a word. It ends like this, with silence.
Joe is the last person they’re waiting on.
Nolan and his parents were led inside the white tent, along with the man accompanying them. At times, I can see their shadows moving against the light, but the woods have gone silent, other than the occasional crackle of a walkie-talkie somewhere just out of sight.
“Kennedy?”
I turn to see Joe jogging from the parking lot. When he reaches me, he pulls me toward him in a panic.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. “My phone was off when I was at the jail. I didn’t get the message.”
I throw my arms around his back, and he doesn’t let go.
He holds my face between his hands, like my mother might do; his fingers are rougher, and strong. I close my eyes then, no longer trying to hold back the emotion.
“Did you see Elliot?” I ask when I pull back.
“Yeah. I’m sorry, Kennedy.” He shakes his head. “His memory, it’s in fragments. He remembers the sound of the gun. The feel of the recoil. When we asked him more about that night, he shut down.” Joe closes his eyes, like he wants to block it out as well. “But he confirmed the details about where the gun was kept. Hearing what you believe happened, he’s agreed, at least, to try hypnosis, or other therapy. To try to get the pieces back. We’ll have to wait to see what the forensics team pulls from the house. It’s been a long time, Kennedy.”
I had been hoping for a big miracle. For Elliot to suddenly remember. For everyone to automatically believe. But at least it’s something. At least it’s a start.
Joe puts a hand on my back, leading me away. “Come on, let’s get you home.”
I stare at the white sheets of the makeshift tent, moving in the breeze. Joe starts to walk toward the parking lot, where there’s a single officer stationed.
I stop moving, and Joe turns around. “Wait. I need to check on Nolan before we leave,” I tell him.
Joe pauses, his hands in his pockets, looking toward the tent, where they all must be waiting. “He’ll want some time, Kennedy.”
But I think about that, about the time I was in the hospital, when no one came for hours. And then when I was alone in Joe’s house, and still, no one came. All I had was time and space, stretching forever, an endless echo.
“No, Joe,” I say. “You’re wrong.”
Inside that tent is a shadow house, a place of horrors Nolan can only imagine. He’s coming face-to-face with it now; I know he is. All the things that might’ve been. The way his brother might’ve fallen, the way he could’ve twisted. What he might’ve called out as he fell. What Nolan believes he could’ve done to prevent it. The what-ifs will run through his mind, over and over. He will close his eyes, and he will see it.
He won’t notice the rest. The things I shut out for months. The people I didn’t see, right there, on the other side.
“I need to stay,” I tell him. Even if he doesn’t see me yet. “Will you wait for me?”
“Of course, Kennedy.”
As I turn away, Joe calls after me, leans in close so he’s speaking into my ear. “How did you find him? Just between you and me. How did you know where to look?”
I pull back, looking him in the eye. “There were clues in the signal. I told you. It was meant for us.”
I can see it in him, how he wants to believe me. I think he’s trying. I hope it lets him see.